Hobby Update: Herd Lycans

It's been a bonkers 2025 so far. January was busy, but pleasantly filled with lots of nice Kings of War stuff. February was so nutty that I not only got no games in at all, but I only managed one hobbying session of any note. However that session was well spent, and up now are some redone Herd Lycans! It's been a while since we've had a hobbying post, so we'll take this small win in defiance of the state of the world.

Back in July, I accidentally flipped a box of minis, with some metal minis "stampeding" through several thousand points of Herd stuff. Most if it was fixed up pretty quickly, but not the Lycans, since I wanted to repaint them… eventually.

A horde!

The repainting timetable was nebulous, as I have liked exploring Guardian Brutes for my Herd, and I felt like I still had more to explore with them. However, my interest in the Lycans was piqued over the winter for a few reasons.

A second horde!

The first was the Forces of the Abyss, another army I play. I went to school at a liberal arts college, and have continually approach things from a broad, kinda interdisciplinary perspective. They got a refresh late in 2024, and while I made some purchases, I wasn’t able to assemble everything before inclement weather descended. I chose to prime and paint up the build-around Nagarri, though most folks came to like the Abyssal Berserkers far more among the new units. After seeing their stats I realized that while I don’t have as-high a Nerve value or strong a damage output, I did have a very similar unit with the Lycans, just swapping Fury for Pathfinder. That’s something worth exploring.

A third horde!

The second reason is too convoluted to get into fully right now, but the gist is that I stumbled upon Keith Conroy’s 2021 Masters List, which utilized Lycans for their speed. There is a ton to unpack here, and we’ll save that for another post. The point being that I had another reason to explore some Lycans.

And a now, a regiment.

The third was a great showing for some Undead Lycans online, where Darkblack fielded some to amazing feats over my frequent opponent, Trevor.

And a second regiment. These were the last two models left, since I didn't plan enough ahead...

Originally, I had written the Lycans off as a “bad” hammer. They are very quick, but with just CS1, they aren’t likely to do much on the offense, and it will take a lot of effort (or multiple turns) to break something, which isn’t ideal for a hammer. You need to be getting flanks and such with them, which I have struggled to do. Discussions on the Forum surrounding DarkBlack’s Undead Lycans, and on FB surrounding the Abyssal Berserkers, recontextualized the unit a bit for me as a pressure-piece first and a hammer-unit second. At least that’s how we’ll try to approach it when they do hit the table!

As for the actual hobbying, the minis were thankfully not on stands, and the few that weren’t knocked clean off during the flipping of the box were removed by me, so I could tidy up the bases first. I also took the opportunity here to add in another regiment base, so I could give two regiments of Lycans a try too. Essentially all the bases got paint touchups and a little more snow effect to hide the old work.

Several of the minis had minor breaks, but since they were assembled toys, most of the breaks happened at pre-existing joins, and were all pretty easy to fix. The original paintjob was a super-heavy wash, which just looked flooded, dark, and dirty. The solution was to just add some highlights to everything. Muscles got a light blue; fur got a light gray; claws a light tan; etc. Everything “pops” a bit now and the units look much better overall. The only bummer is that the last two minis of mine ended up being "samey" for a regiment, so I might pop those off and reglue them another time to mix it up. Otherwise, I am quite happy with the repaints.

Like I said at the top, it's been a bonkers 2025 so far. Hopefully you and yours are safe and sound, and hopefully I'll have more posts coming soon, as a bit of a respite from everything.